136 THE GAMEKEEPER AT HOME. 



of it seem hard to deny an old woman who has worked 

 all her days in the field a bundle of fallen branches rotting 

 under the trees. The accumulations of such dead sticks 

 in some places are astonishing : the soil under the ash- 

 poles must slowly rise from the mass of decaying wood 

 and ultimately become greatly enriched by this natural 

 manure. 



When a hard clay soil is revealed by the operations 

 for draining a meadow, and the crust of black or reddish 

 mould on which the sweet green grass flourishes is seen to 

 be but spade-deep, the idea naturally occurs that that thin 

 crust must have been originated by some similar process 

 to what is now going on in the ash wood. Those six or 

 nine inches of mould perhaps represent several centuries of 

 forest. But if the keeper admits the old woman shivering 

 over her embers in the cottage to pick up these dead 

 boughs, how can he tell what further tricks others may 

 be up to ? The privilege has often been offered and as 

 often abused, until at last it has been finally withdrawn- 

 not only because of the poaching carried on under the 

 cloak of picking up dead wood, but because the intruders 

 tore down fine living branches from the trees and spoiled 

 and disfigured them without mercy. Sometimes gentle- 

 men go to the expense of having wood periodically 

 gathered and distributed among the poor, which is a con- 

 siderate system and worthy of imitation where possible. 



Occasionally men come to search for walking-sticks, 



